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There's one point that bbukh raised that you didn't answer: the policy of not linking directly to amazon but via a referral site. Then if the book is bought (in that session), the owner of the referral site gets some credit on amazon. The first site mentioned by bbukh doesn't make this clear, which is behaviour that I'm not happy with. I don't, as a rule, object to the referral system but I do think it ought to be explicit rather than hidden away in the links - particularly for those (like myself) who don't really know how it works.
I think it's certainly worth discussing, but it seems premature to make policies to counteract abuses that we're not sure will happen. Certainly if somebody starts linking to Amazon with referral codes, he'll be told to stop it and then (if he persists) we'll suspend his account.
My feeling is that linking to Amazon is pretty standard, though my preference is to link to Google books whenever possible.
But in the fractals list, this did happen! It wasn't a direct link with a referral code, but the links off the page linked to have referral codes (at least, all those I tested did). And this was not stated either on the page itself nor in the answer.
Personally, I'd rather a link to Kepler's bookstore.
In the case of the fractals list, that page is the top Google result (for me) for 'fractal books', so it seems quite likely that the person posting the link here is unrelated to the person hosting the page of Amazon links, in which case I wouldn't call this abuse.
I agree with rwbarton that it I wouldn't call it abusive in that case.
Anyways I don't see what's so bad about even intentionally posting Amazon links with referral codes, provided of course that the link is relevant--otherwise it should be treated as spam. Am I allowed to link to my (hypothetical) ad-supported blog?
There are good reasons US Federal Courts don't issue advisory opinions -- it's much easier to talk about the specific example. Now: I edited the post we're talking about. I believe this is a big improvement over the way it was written before.
Of course, as part of "checks and balances" system, you should check out if you're fine with what I wrote there.
I wouldn't call it abuse providing it was made clear. In this case it wasn't. It may be, as you suggest, that the person who posted that comment was unaware of the issue, but that doesn't change the fact that I would want it made clear once it was brought to the attention of someone with enough rep to do something about it. So thanks, Ilya, I think your change is just fine.
@Spinorbundle: Thanks for clearing that up. I see no need to apologise, but your wording could have made it clearer that you had no particular relationship with the site you were linking to. Maybe something like "A quick google search came up with this list" or "I've found this list useful in the past.".
@bbukh and others: I noticed I was mentioned (rather positively) as the author of non-referral link to amazon
I want to share that before posting a link I (usually) try to check that the store I link to is the best by some objective criterion --- in this case, it's indeed the first Google result. Perhaps this could also be a good thing to put in the FAQ.
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